15 (3), 2014

Welcome to the volume 15 number: 3 of TOJDE,
In this issue, 22 articles of 36 authors from 9 different countries around the world have been published. These published articles are arrived to the Tojde from Brazil, Ghana, India, Malaysia, Nigeria, Pakistan, Thailand, Turkey and USA.

In this theoretical study, researcher tries to shed light on the modern strategy of education, Mobile learning is this strategy, which has become a reality exists in the educational institutions and aims researcher of this study. Trying to figure out the reality of Mobil Determining if the mobile learning part of the E-Learning. Trying for identify future of mobile learning. And the researcher collect the information and the data from previous research in addition to what has been published on websites and blogs and has reached the researcher to achieve the successes of Mobile learning at the level of the educational process now , and that this strategy of mobile learning is not part of the e-learning, and generation of generations , but a new way for the development of the educational process educational , researcher is expected to evolve Mobile learning expands even at the all levels of educational.

This paper attempts to present a review of Facebook group pages as an educational tool for language learning. One of the primary needs of foreign language learners is to gain the opportunity to use the target language outside the classroom practice. Social media communication provides occasions for learners to receive input and produce output while engaging in negotiation of meaning. In line with this point, teachers can instigate class group pages in the social media in an attempt to provide a space for practice and communication free of the traditional pedagogic concerns of a typical classroom. The distinctive discursive behaviour of Facebook group pages helps one to achieve that attempt. In light of these views, the researcher, in this study, formed a group page to understand the dynamics of social media environment as a supporting tool for language classrooms.
This paper addresses various features which make social media a unique place to contribute to the sense of class community and collaboration outside the classroom. The face-to face classroom is a controlled communication event, that is, teachers and students are required to be in the classroom at the same time but a teacher’s use of Facebook is an attempt to communicate with students outside of that controlled environment where teachers can meet students in their territory. When compared to its disadvantages, the advantages of setting a class group page on the social media outweigh. Students can feel motivated to contribute to an online community if they subsequently receive support or help. It also leads students to feel that they are being supported by a whole portion of their class community and promotes students’ desire to maintain a valued relationship with others. Students continue developing and strengthening relationships with others.

Teaching being a dynamic activity requires a favourable attitude and certain specific competencies from its practitioners. Teachers’ proficiency depends on the attitude she possesses for the profession. The positive attitude helps teacher to develop a conductive learner friendly environment in the classroom. This also casts a fruitful effect on learning of the students. Attitude being a social construct is influenced by many factors like gender social strata ,age, stream of education and previous experience of the job .what bearing the gender and stream of education has on the attitude of student teachers towards teaching profession to throw light on this a study was conducted using a readymade tool. Study of different categories like Non-tribal male and female science stream, nontribal male and female social science stream, Tribal male and female science stream, Tribal male and female social science stream was undertaken. In a sample of hundred students ninety six students responded. The mean scores were considered and ‘ t’ value was calculated to find the difference in the attitude of different categories towards teaching profession.

This purpose of this study was to understand e-learners and face to face learners’ views towards learning English through e-learning in vocational higher school context and to determine the role of academic achievement and gender in e-learning and face to face learning. This study was conducted at a state-run university in 2012-2013 academic year and subjects were 221 students from two different Vocational Higher Schools taking up English course through e-learning and traditional learning. The results of the study revealed that there was no significant difference between e-learners and face to face learners about the views towards learning English via e-learning. Furthermore, academic achievement and gender were not the strong determiners in e-learning compared with face to face learning.

This study investigated some specific barriers and needs that online students are facing when learning English through WebEx system. It compared students’ barriers and needs with their background including gender, computer ownership, and monthly allowance. It also investigated the relationship among computer aptitude, barriers and needs of online learners. The samples were 211 undergraduate students enrolled in Fundamental English course. The instrument in this study was a questionnaire. Results indicated that the levels of needs and barriers of online learners in general were moderate. There were no statistically significant differences at .05 level found in barriers and needs of online learners as classified by gender, computer ownership, and computer aptitude. As hypothesised, there was a negative relationship between computer aptitude and barriers of online learners at .01 level. Students with high computer aptitude had fewer barriers to learn online than those with low computer aptitude.
In addition, there was a positive relationship between barriers and needs of online learners at .01 levels. Students with more barriers were found to have more needs to help them to learn online than those with few barriers. Teachers and institutions can take the results of this study into consideration when developing online courses.

Distance education by its nature differs from the regular mode of higher education. A viable option for providing access to higher education for students who cannot attend traditional, on-campus courses, distance education, often gets a tag of being sedentary. This puts into question the qualitative aspect of the distance education courses. Distance education therefore often confronts a perception that its programmes, learning materials, and student support are not of a high standard (Badat, 2005).
Evaluation of the effectiveness of distance learning should focus mainly on students’ academic performance and their feedback on their learning experiences. The present study intends to study the quality facet of distance education and its dimensions as perceived by the students enrolled in distance education courses. For conducting the study, 100 students pursuing Masters of Education (M.Ed.) from University School of Open Learning, Panjab University, were selected. Students were asked to give their feedback on areas associated with the quality like, aims and objectives of the course, teaching of the course content, curriculum transaction, learning material, student support services, evaluation procedures, infrastructural facilities and general perspective of the overall learning environment. To study the quality dimensions as perceived by the learners, content analysis was incorporated. The results reveal that the students are satisfied with the overall quality of distance education courses. The areas that emerged to be a matter of concern in the present study are student support services and infrastructural facilities available in the institutions offering distance education courses.

Educational institutions rapidly adopt concepts and practices of online learning systems for students. But many institutions’ online learning programs face enormous difficulty in achieving successful strategies. It is essential to evaluate its different aspects and understand factors which influence its effectiveness. Readiness stands out among the variables that influence online learning effectiveness. Therefore, it is important to examine online learning readiness (OLR) and students’ characteristics that affect OLR. This paper reports relationship between student characteristics and OLR at vocational college. Quantitative method was used to collect relevant data in this study. Hung et al.’s Online Learning Readiness Scale (OLRS) was administered to 725 vocational college students, in Balıkesir. OLRS has 18 items grouped into five factors; computer/Internet self-efficacy (CIS), self-directed learning (SDL), learner control (LC), motivation for learning (ML), and online communication self-efficacy (OCS). t-test and multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) were used to determine if there were significant differences in online learning readiness across the students’ characteristics. The study revealed that students surveyed overall ready for online learning but they need to improve themselves especially in CIS and OCS in order to be successful at online learning. Students’ characteristics (PC ownership, department, type of high school graduation) significantly affect learners’ in some dimensions of OLRS especially CIS dimension. The research findings were discussed in line with the literature and some suggestions were presented for further research and researchers.

The purpose of this research is to assess the student products created by digital storytelling, and to determine the awareness towards learning the topic and the cognitive loads of students during the process. Research was performed with a total of 52 teacher candidates attending 2nd class at “Classroom Teacher” department of Mersin University Faculty of Education in 2012-2013 education years. General scanning model was used to determine the cognitive loads and awareness of student products, created by teacher candidates through digital storytelling, for learning the topic.
As a result of the Research, we reached the conclusion that the awareness related to basic concepts and program created by digital storytelling increased, and there was not a cognitive overload. Also, students’ opinions were taken on the process and according to acquired data, it was concluded that the students were pleased with the process, their awareness increased, and they made plans to improve what they learned and use them in the future. In line with acquired findings, it was suggested that experimental studies should be made on this topic.

The purpose of this study is to determine the effects on motivation and success within the application of blended learning environments in the foreign language class. The research sample is formed by third grade students studying in the tourism and hotel management programs of the faculty for tourism and the faculty of economics and administrative sciences at the Nevsehir Hacı Bektas Veli University (Turkey) in fall semester of the 2012-2013 academic year.
The research group consists of 62 students and there of 35 students belong to the experimental group and the other 27 persons belong to the control group. While the experimental group was subject to 14 hours online and 6 hours traditional face to face learning, the control group was subject to only 6 hours traditional face to face learning. The research has been completed after a 10 week application. The data on the research have been collected with German course achievement tests via the German Language Learning Motivation Scale.
The results reveal that the experimental group of students attending the German classes in blended learning environments has more success and higher motivation compared to the control group attending German language classes in the traditional learning environment. Even if the learners achieve certain success and motivation findings in the classroom and face to face environments performed along with teaching-learning activities mainly in control of the instructor, the success and motivation effect of the blended learning environment could not be achieved.

Distance learning has undergone great changes, especially since the advent of the Internet and communication and information technology. Questions have been asked following the growth of this mode of instructional activity. Researchers have investigated methods to assess the benefits of e-learning from a number of perspectives.
This survey assesses the associations among the system quality, information quality, and service quality on student satisfaction and use of systems in virtual learning environments using the e-learning success model adapted by Holsapple and Lee-Post from the Delone and McLean (1992, 2003) model as a theoretical basis.
The survey was carried out by means of an online program offered to 291 students from public and private institutions from several regions of Brazil. Confirmatory Factor Analysis and Structural Equation Modeling were used for data analysis in order to understand the student satisfaction process in virtual learning system. Findings show that variations in system quality, information quality, and service quality influence the use of the system, and the User Satisfaction construct had 89% of variance explained by Information Quality and Service Quality.
Many of the benefits of distance learning programs are related to students’ satisfaction and the intensity with which they make use of the learning system. With awareness of the indicators that are antecedents of these variables, education executives can plan investments that meet the most significant demands and use the information to deal with one of the major problems in distance learning: the dropout rate. Future researches should study this subject longitudinally.

The value of education is widely acknowledged. Evidence from literature indicates that some perceptions or rather misconceptions are expressed about distance education vis-à-vis traditional, residential education particularly in higher education institutions (HEIs). In this article, the author offers some reflections on traditional education and undertakes a review of distance education. Based on analysis of scholarly literature, the author highlights an important element that must steer any debate on education. This article underscores not only the benefits distance education offers but also the critical measures that must be pursued to reap the benefits. Arguments about distance-residential schooling have narrowly focused on mode of delivery. I argue that what must concern people in general and authorities of HEIs in particular is how to achieve quality education by equipping learners with relevant knowledge and skills to become functional citizens who contribute to the social and economic development of society. Suggestions offered included the need for certificates awarded by HEIs to have the same value and appearance despite the mode of education adopted. Designating some certificates as online or sandwich, for example, is misplaced. That graduates of online or distance education programs must assert themselves by demonstrating beyond doubt that they are not second-class students is also emphasized.

This research study documents the journey of two modern language faculty (Spanish and German) from their original beliefs that teaching foreign languages can only be conducted in a face-to-face format to their eventual development of an online class using Web 2.0 technologies to encourage their students’ active skills of reading and speaking in their target language. The research study shows how the instructors incorporated Web 2.0 technologies and used the Communities of Inquiry (CoI) framework to design their online class to ensure their class had the essential elements of teaching presence, social presence and cognitive presence. Web 2.0 technologies used to build strong levels of CoI were BB-Collaborate web conferencing, Voki, VoiceThread, ANVILL, Fakebook, Bubble,us, Mindmapping, Flashcard Exchange, Glogster, Zunal, and Weebly.

Keywords: Modern Languages, Community of Inquiry, Web 2.0, Distance Education

As a result of advances in technology and then the emergence of using Internet in every step of life, web that provides access to the documents such as picture, audio, animation and text in Internet started to be used. At first, web consists of only visual and text pages that couldn’t enable to make user’s interaction. However, it is seen that not only access to information but also analyzing, configuring, sharing information and creating new information came into the prominence in 21st century. Changing needs and conditions has led to the changing web and the emergence of Web 2.0.
The purpose of the study is to be examined faculty of education students' the usage condition of Web 2.0 tools in terms of various variables.
This is a descriptive style study with a survey model that aims to present faculty of education students' the usage condition of Web 2.0 tools. The population of research composed of 359 students who study at first grade of Faculty of Education in Istanbul University in 2008-2009 academic year. These students were taken from eight different departments through random sampling for this research. The data collection used in this research was a questionnaire that is developed by researcher with 18 items. One-way ANOVA, t-test, was made to determine whether there was a significant different between averages according to the varieties about individual properties. It is seen in analyses which were practiced in line with this aim that faculty of education students' the usage condition of Web 2.0 tools differentiates in terms of departments, gender, high school which they graduate, the year of Internet and computer usage, weekly average duration of Internet and computer usage.
It can be generally said that faculty of education students don't use Web 2.0 applications in the expected level. It is very important that pre-service teachers should learn how to use these tools as well as they should receive education of computer literacy in the faculty of education which trains teachers. The other suggestion is that these tools should be integrated with courses which pre-service teachers receive in the prevocational training. Different samples can be chosen or sample can be enlarged in the further researches. As comparison can be made between students of different faculties, analyses can be thoroughly made by being benefited from qualitative research method.

The study was designed as descriptive and cross-sectional to determine the relation between students’ views about web-based Patient Education course and anxiety. The study group consisted of all students registered the web-based Patient Education course (N: 148) at 2010–2011 semester at a nursing school. Data were collected using "Information Form", "Patient Education Course Assessment Form" and "State-Continuous Anxiety Scale."
Most of students are female and average age were 20.30 ± 1.24. Most of students had not participated in any course/program given by distance education. Before the course the students state anxiety is light level, however after education the students state anxiety is moderate level. It was found that the students had positive views about the "Course Design" and the "Gains of Course", but they were hesitative about the method of the course. Findings were thought to be due to the fact that the students’ experiences distance education course for first time. As a result students had positive views about web-based patient education course, there is relation between state anxiety before course and views about course.
The findings suggested that the students had positive views about the web-based education, but they were anxious as they had a new experience, and the distance education could be used particularly in theoretical courses in nursing education, but the necessary changes needed to be made on the basis of the results of the longitudinal assessments.

Pakistan is a developing with 148 universities and degree awarding institutions including public and private sector. The enrolment as given in the National Educational Policy 2009 was up to 5% only. It reflects greater demands of higher/tertiary education and calls for alternative strategic measures for addressing the issue. An innovative approach was necessary to address the issue of access. Therefore, the Islamia University of Bahawalpur –a formal mode university took an innovative initiative to become a dual mode university by establishing an Institute of Distance Education (IDE) in 2011. The institute offered along with others, an M.Phill programme in ten disciplines through distance education mode in semester fall 2011. More than eight hundred applications were received by potential learners against 275 seats. However, after test and interview 189 students were enrolled in M.Phill programme in Applied Psychology, Arabic, Education, English, Media Studies, Islamic Studies, Pakistan Studies, History, Persian, and Urdu.
In the beginning, the Institute organized an orientation workshop for learners to guide them studying in distance education system. The programme was offered under semester system and the semester was broke up into two halves –mid-term and final term. The respective departments provided learning materials to students whereas the IDE provided instructional booklet. Submission of two assignments was compulsory for the entire semester; one before mid-term and second before final-term workshop/ examination for each of the courses. Similarly, students’ presence in workshops for 24 hours (12 during mid-term and 12 during final-term workshop) for one 3-credit hour course was mandatory. Students’ support services were provided through Skype conference, social media and mobile phones. Students necessarily had to give presentations and submit their assignments after checking their similarity index by using turnitin software. At the end of the course work the instructors rated performance of learners’ to be good. Learner’s appeared to be enthusiastic for continuing their studies. The experience appeared to be a milestone in promoting higher education and feasible for replication at larger scale in Pakistan. The process and procedures; achievements; and problems, issues and challenges were discussed paper to be presented during the conference. The detailed experience will be shared during the conference.

Open Universities across the world are embracing ICT based teaching and learning process to disseminate quality education to their learners spread across the globe. In India availability and access of ICT and learner characteristics are uneven and vary from state to state. Hence it is important to establish the facts about ICT access among learners, their ICT usage patterns and their readiness to use ICT for educational purpose. In view of this, a study was conducted with the objective to find out the access level of ICT among distance learners. The analysis indicates that maximum learners have desktop/laptops and most of them are accessing internet very frequently from their home. The analysis also indicates that maximum respondents are browsing social networking sites followed by educational and e-mail service providing websites. Findings suggest that there is a need to generate ICT based tutorials complemented with social networking tools and mobile applications. Study also shows that learners are equipped with mobile phones and they are browsing internet through it and also availing support services offered by the university. Hence possibility of integrating mobile phone services may be used for providing learner support services and content delivery.

Traditional education systems can sometimes become inadequate in the face of technological developments. Individuals, whose educational needs cannot be met by traditional education systems, can tend to search for alternatives and can have different demands in order to meet with these needs. These demands of the individuals can be reciprocated by managements and internet-based education methods, which remove limitations of time and space, provide facilities and equal opportunities, comply with student-centered educational approach and use computer and internet technologies, can be put into practice. Appearing before us sometimes as an alternative to the traditional education and sometimes as a support, these applications began to occupy an important place in the education systems of our era.
This study, which was conducted by general survey method in view of this importance, aims to learn opinions of “masters’ students on the efficiency of distance education applications.” Survey of “Distant Education and Technologies Assessment,” developed by Aktas (2008) and adapted to Istanbul sampling by the researcher, was used in order to determine opinions. University students, who are doing masters without thesis at Social Sciences Institute Educational Administration Supervision Planning and Economics Department of Fatih University in 2013-2014 academic years, constitute the study group of the research. All of the students in the study group were reached. As a result of the study, masters’ students believe that “distance education applications” fills a very important void for individuals that experience difficulties especially in time management despite some of its inconveniencies. By looking at the results of the study, it is suggested that measures, which provide further dissemination of distance education application by will improve their technical competencies, should be taken.

The aim of this study is to find out the effect of distance education applications based on smart board in teaching pattern preparation techniques and its contribution to students’ achievement and skills. An experimental model with a pretest-posttest experimental and control group was used with 34 students who attended the department of Ready-Made Clothing Teacher Training Programme at Selcuk University in Turkey.
As experiment group, distance education model by using the smart board was applied to the students synchronously. The students in the control group had the same lessons in traditional way in the classroom. The data was obtained using the achievement test, applied exam and skill observation form developed by the researchers and evaluated statistically with the help of Wilcoxon Signed Ranks and Mann Whitney-U tests.
The findings obtained after a four-week-application indicate that the synchronous distance education model by using smart board has been more effective on student achievements than the traditional way.

The purpose of this study was to identify the problems which national athletes, who study in School of Physical Education and Sport in universities, encounter in formal education and to determine their need for distance learning. Qualitative research, which is one the techniques of researching the method of the study, forms a structured deliberation technique. Deliberation questions are prepared with this technique based on expert opinions and during the deliberation, the questions were asked to the people who attended the deliberation in a partially flexible way. Population and sampling of the research; population of the study is the people who study in School of Physical Education and Sports, and sampling is the 348 national athletes who study wrestling, bocce, dart, bowling, basketball, volleyball, football, taekwando, karate, archery, atheism, tennis, judo, badminton, table tennis, boxing, weight lifting, handball, gymnastics and swimming in School of Physical Education and Sports. %20.4 of these sportsmen are female, %79.6 of them are male and %78.7 of them are between 19-25 years old, %14.4 of them are between 26-30 years old, %4.3 of them are between 31-35 years old, and %2.6 of them are 36 years old and older. %26.4 of the sportsmen who attend the research, study Coaching, %49.7 of them study Profession of Teaching, %14.1 of them study Sport Management and %9.8 of them study Recreation. And %97.7 of these sportsmen receive undergraduate education, %2.3 of them receive graduate education.
At the end of the study, the national athletes, who attended the research, emphasized that they were having problems in formal education, they failed the exams because they couldn’t follow the courses, when they had to attend the courses, they delayed their trainings, and this situation effected their education level. %87.9 of the national athletes who took part in the study pointed that they need distance learning and if such a programme is developed, they could follow the courses even when they were resting in the camping and they think that a programme like this must be developed as soon as possible.

Use of language learning strategies is important for language learning. Some researchers state that language learning strategies are important because their use affects the development of communicative competence (Lessard-Clouston, 1997 & Oxford, 1990). Effective use of language learning strategies has particular importance for distance language learners who do not have direct face-to-face contact with their tutors. This study investigates the use of language learning strategies by a group of Turkish distance learners of English. Oxford (1990) Strategy Inventory for Language Learning was used and interviews were conducted to collect data.
The questionnaire results show that affective strategies are used less than the other strategy categories. The reasons for the ignorance of the affective strategies are also mentioned in the study.